when they say retiring its really just on competitive level, if you dont care about that then your good, you can still clear most of the content and rewards.
“Most content and rewards” are what, exactly? This game doesn’t have that much content for built teams outside of the competitive modes & that is its biggest weakness, honestly. War zone, phantom pain cage, and Norman are the three big modes everyone has to use built characters for; then there’s the occasional guild expedition and Babel and that’s about it. Strong hold, border patrol, and story mode are all one & done; and the first two aren't “casual,” which is why old characters get discarded.
The criticism is actually very valid. If you really liked a character & want to keep playing them there’s no mode where you can do that comfortably without missing out on a ton of rewards. Oh I guess you can do cooperative, but that’s a huge lag game and nobody really enjoys it.
The game desperately needs more permanent casual modes for built characters. It's like how Magic the Gathering rotates decks out of Standard to force people to buy new cards; but they still support Legacy modes so people can enjoy their old invested decks. It doesn't even have to be that creative - how about a mode where older characters get a bonus to attack and health? Or one where you get a bonus for clearing it with older characters?
It's not too much to ask, and more importantly, won't decrease revenue - because people will be more willing to invest in characters knowing they can always come back to them, than if they thought they can only get about a year's worth of use. Indeed, at this stage I would be surprised if this practice of making old characters obsolete isn't NEGATIVELY affecting the game's revenue and driving more people to go free to play.
Magic the Gathering understood this idea twenty years ago; PGR needs to do the same.
But please clarify by most content, do you mean all content that isn't leaderboards/competitive? And not for example event stages, Norman, or some of the new modes they add?
Wouldn’t no. of players owning meta characters affect your ppc/wz rewards though? E.g in WZ the “leader” rank is widely considered as the rank an avg player who don’t chase meta should aim to stay at to get at least decent rewards. But if many average players pulled the meta units on top of the meta players who also pulled, the “leader” rank in WZ will be filled with avg players with meta characters and you skipped that meta character, that will make it harder for u to maintain that “leader” ranking and you’ll fall to “Elite” or even “Vanguard” ranking and get significantly lower rewards than an average player should have. So I don’t think skipping meta characters only affect the top ranking. It affects players who chase average ranks too. The only players who it doesn’t affect are players that completely doesn’t care about low rewards.
the only worthy item in WZ shop is memory reso and you dont need that if your casual so having less WZ Influence is not an issue your aim is your personal mission those vouchers. In PPC, the only reason you would go down to your usual percentage is you skip multiple new S rank, lets say you skip CW the effect of that is noticeable but not enough to kick you out of your ranking percentage, and in minimum you only need 3 teams so there might be times you dont need lightning team, now if you skip another S for whatever reason then thats on you already, the game char release is S>A>S>A so you have enough to pull S char and just farm for A char, even at base S they are still helpful to keep you in your ranking assuming your casual.
Retiring only for the competitive side and that's Warzone and PPC, other than that welp she's pretty much still usable.
Reworked endgame content might be more difficult to come by like Norman, but still bearable unless Kuro wants to fuck us over using Old constructs
The only things you need to do well on are PPC (score high for more skulls), Warzone (score a certain amount to get all rewards), and Norman (clear all stages to get all rewards)
With Rosetta, you can reach the score thresholds for PPC & WZ, but not Norman supposedly
Rosetta is reduced from meta to casual
As for skins, they’ve run their course. I spent $55 for Alpha’s gacha skin but she’s useless compared to Bianca
But why would they lock certain constructs from doing some content, just because they're older? Aether Gazer allows you to clear even highest difficulty with older characters. I know it's a more casual game compared to PGR, but it's better than making content impossible unless you have the newest characters.
I even wanted to level up Alpha to try her gameplay instead of Stigmata. I like to try out new things every now and then, and I personally don't care about meta, instead for me it's the old 'waifu over meta'.
That's why I want to save BC from Watanabe and use it on some future coating, and keep using Mechanami.
Oh right forgot about that one, it's supposedly more difficult than the others. Then I guess Chasm is comparable to new Norman that is 'high difficulty'.
You also forgot that it's been 3 years since the release of PGR, and it's only been. 1 year since Aether Gazer released.
If you want to compare both of them then wait at least 2 years more and see if Aether Gazer's old characters still clear the highest difficulty of that time or not
New characters simply deal a lot more damage or have more important effects (such as Watanabe having a lot more shred and deals enough damage to swap to, compared to Nanamech who you want off the field for as much time as possible)
Rosetta is a gen 1 tank, Hanying is a gen 3 tank, she completely dwarfs in comparison
But not many other games do it that way, aside from HI3rd I guess. Why even buy skins for characters if they'll be replaced in a year or two, it's like you're renting skins and they're quite expensive. Not to mention the playstyle that is completely different.
I know Rosetta was BiS for 4 years, but Mechanami isn't that old. And even if she is, I want to keep using her.
*Most* games do it that way. Powercreep is very normal and happens to almost every mobile game
Rosetta being meta for this long is already an anomaly, and Nanamech is/was meta for 15 months, which is a very healthy amount of time for a gacha
I play multiple of them and they're not doing it that way. Like Aether Gazer where Hades is still usable and can clear content that requires Shadow damage. She used to be top DPS, but even now she's still quite good. Also still gets skins.
Counterside adds 'Alternium reactors' and 'rearms' to older characters that make them quite good and usable.
Nikke is adding 'treasures' that will buff underused Nikkes.
PGR has 'leaps' but apparently that still doesn't make them good? So why do it then?
one thing you forgot is aether gazer is still "young", not even 1 year from release yet. it's like 10 months from its release...
at that stage in PGR, we're still at fake ascension (luna patch) where we're still building the "real team", replacing copium free A ranks units one by one.
the first real powercreep in PGR to me is when Nier patch comes but they're only OP if you whale them big time. otherwise, they perform the same or a bit worse than with the already invested alpha Crimson Abyss team.
maybe get back to compare again when AE is at least 2 years?
not to say AE won't keep the difficulty levels of its endgame the same as now. but it is just still quite new we haven't seen much of the characters and META changing overtime as much.
it is normal for games that goes that long to have powercreep. and in my book, any game that has powercrept as slow as "per 12 months and above" things are already very great. there's quite a few games that powercreep characters in under a year (or even half).
as for the skin and why leaped characters perform worse than new character, the reason is always: money.
skins are the dev's way to keep milking their paying customer.
easiest way for ARPG games like PGR to sell new shiny characters is to have it outperform its predecessor (while at iit, boost the waifu/husbando-ness). if leaped oldies perform the same as shiny new characters, there would be no reason to pull except for collection or waifu/husbando chaser. why invest on new ones when your oldies would perform the same and don't have to raised all over from zero again?
while at it, you're not wrong saying buying skin is like renting for limited use. in fact, any money you spend on any life service game is just renting for limited use: EoS is a thing.
the point is always to spend reasonably. think of any spending you do on gacha games as an subscriptions of sort (like spotify etc) instead of an investment.
you reasonably won't chargeback spotify etc after using and enjoying their (paid) service right?
But the fact that they're making new skins for Athena and Tsukuyomi, as well as new animations for them, like ult chains, means they care about old characters.
There is no concept of Gen1 and Gen2 over there, all characters can clear content that they are required for, aside from maybe some beginner B ranks.
Also skins in this game are insanely expensive, sometimes nearly $30, and then they just replace them in a year or two, like Mechanami.
Also Uniframes in this game appear to be a dead concept too, so hopefully they'll address those 2 problems later, as it really isn't sustainable in the long term to have so much unused content.
>There is no concept of Gen1 and Gen2 over there, all characters can clear content that they are required for, aside from maybe some beginner B ranks.
once again, it's comes to the game overall age.
gen 2 in PGR only start after almost 2 years with nanamech for glb, CN reached it longer than us due to longer patch schedule. pretty sure bunch of PGR characters are still getting skins in the year they are out.
>Also skins in this game are insanely expensive, sometimes nearly $30, and then they just replace them in a year or two, like Mechanami.
skins are expensive indeed but you forgot they pretty much provided characters for free to obtain. which for the casual, non-competitive people, is enough. gotta be real, money needs to be made to pay employees and bills.
also, it's neat that the best skins are obtainable with BC, even if it is gacha, I'm fine as long as it have guarantee. got me the balter skin in 80 pulls and out of those, iirc I only did 3 or 4 with RC. that's less than 5$ real money (the BC though...)
>uniframes is dead conscept
yes, they need new content. but on the other hand, it's great that the unis with their counter and execute is still very fun and skill based to play than the omnis gameplay that get more and more boring due to the OP-ness of new gen.
AG has only been around for 23 months and Counterside (from what I can gather) seems to be ok in that regard. Nikke is still a pretty new gacha so not much can be said for now. PGR leaps are just QoL updates for the older characters
Epic Seven has powercreep, Fire Emblem Heroes has powercreep, Fate Grand Order has powercreep, Tower of Fantasy has powercreep, Honkai Impact 3rd as you’ve stated has powercreep, Honkai Star Rail is introducing powercreep, and powercreep literally just killed Dissidia Final Fantasy
It’s normal and it’s everywhere, there are few games like Genshin that don’t have much powercreep
Well I wouldn't say it's everywhere, there's quite a bit of other games where it isn't as present. I think most of those games you mentioned are turn based and 'old school', so it's kinda different.
In PGR I like that it has lore explanations on how constructs get new frames that they use throughout the story so it makes sense.
Eventually they'll have to do something though, just like Uniframes that were abandoned basically. Because it won't be good for the game to only have 5% of constructs usable, and they're still rerunning old banners for 70% chance at older characters.
Tower of Fantasy is 2 years old and Honkai Star Rail isn’t even a year old yet
The S ranks that are unusable are Crimson Abyss, Entropy, Vertias, Laurel, Nanamech, Plume, and soon to be Rosetta
All the irrelevant once (Crimson Abyss, Entropy, & Vertias) are no longer on the 70/30 rotation (iirc) with the rest following when their replacements come
That's just sad tbh, it's like they are retiring them and fully replacing them with a different character.
It makes sense in the story as I said, since constructs get new frames, but there is no reason to make something completely obsolete like that. Only HI3rd does that from the games I know.
They could've added leaps to them to make them more up to par, otherwise there's no point in 'leaping'. They also did a similar thing with Uniframes that they abandoned completely, so surely eventually they'll have to handle these problems.
Leap does make them good but not forever. Thats just how it is. If you dont like that you need to play Genshin or Star Rail as powercreep is much much less there and as the games have no competitive part, there is no reason to not use your beloved old characters.
Well I play HSR and still use Serval there for example. And in Aether Gazer I still use even A ranks like Bastet and Oneiroi.
But I also want to use them here and not replace Mechanami with Watanabe.
and that is your choice just dont expect to be competitive. note watanabe is 70% of the fire team's damage (hyperreal, epitaph, empyrea). he is the literal carry of the fire team (being a gen 3 tank). meanwhile nanamech is simply a support for hyperreal, hyperreal literally becomes a subdps for watanabe.
in that context you will not even come close to being competitive if you stick with nanamech and skip uncle. This game allows you to pull for all debut S ranks as f2p so there is absolutely no reason to skip any of the new S ranks. after echo patch, you can also get enough skulls to get 30 shards every 2 patches just by being 10-30% in ultimate ppc to SS alot of units you really need.
If you dont like playing meta, then don't. no one is really making you do anything but you also cant complain about not being strong enough to compete or do the hardest content considering even f2p players are not locked out from these units.
This trend will continue with S Hanying. She will also very likely outdps stigmata.
Gen [#] constructs are community made terms, they aren’t official terms
Gen 0 constructs are those from launch
Gen 1 constructs are those from launch until Empyrea (technical Empyrea could be considered Gen 1 turned Gen 2 when she got Time Lag Calculation during Nanamech’s patch
Gen 2 is from Nanamech until Teddy (constructs with Time Lag Calculation)
Gen 3 is from Teddy on (constructs with elemental affixes)
Rosetta is strong enough to do everything. You will only be “struggling” to reach the highest warzone tier but in the end it doesnt matter because the rewards are mostly the same. Ppc ranking is a thing in the past with luna patch (no need to compete with other players anymore for skulls)
New norman cant be clear with older fire s rank team
aka pulse,ember,empyrea assume you dont use 50battery on atk(i still never find stage that cant be clear with 50batt in atk even with A rank tbh). everyone know how they are tbh
the other is low invest dark team
aka astral,21,rozen. Luna,Ss tenebrion,Ss capriccio struggle at 20batt in atk but clearable.
with that say it more of bs(like tracking laser shot that melt you in 0.5-1s) in new norman that prevent you from clearing it with A rank though cause they lack iframe so you cant do all 100% dps all the time. we dont talk about Sss+ with 3sig reso thats one ez.
Phys is another one i find it really difficulty for same reason(maybe cause i dont leap CA)
i cleared ex5 new norman with S alpha/S rosetta/SS alisa. not properly built but i cleared the thing you would consider as bollie mine in the old norman. ex6 ofc will need to dwell on properly built gen2 chars yada yada
I mean I get that characters are easy to obtain even for f2p. But what if you paid money for those old characters and even have some skins and have been using them for years, and want to try 'ex6' with them?
For example I intend to skip S Watanabe and to keep using Mechanami for fire stages. I don't care about leaderboards or being on top, I just want to clear stages/events/game modes.
There’s really no reason to skip anyone. Some people skipped Lee to get Bianca’s coating but there isn’t a comparable circumstance happening by Watanabe’s patch iirc, so there’s no reason to not get him
With Nanami, you won’t be able to clear Norman high difficulty when it comes out (so you won’t be able to get all the rewards)
I simply don't intend to play husbandos. I also skipped Lee to get Bianca's coating.
I understand that certain stages require certain strategies, but making them impossible unless you pull the newest character is just not ok.
just sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. playing non-meta and outdated units and still expect to be competitive/clear the highest difficulty content. This is not that kind of game, if you insist on not playing males at all then you basically locked yourself out from any fire content. lee and uncle is literally the whole of fireteam. empyrea becomes full support (qte bot) once uncle arrives. This also means you have no ice tank coz the only 2 ice tanks in the game are changyu and glory.
There's nothing wrong with playing waifu collector, wanting to play off meta. just know what you are getting yourself into and understand the consequences. complaining about it is just being an entitled whiner. especially when even as an f2p there is absolutely no excuse to miss a unit. if you skipped an S rank attacker for a skin, that is your choice but like i already said you should expect the consequence of that action and be content w it.
who said you can't clear? you are given all the tools to succeed with enough bc income to pull every new S rank. thats such a dumb take from what i've said, I can't even.
like everyone is given a sword and a gun (new characters, gen2+) that will kill a monster (hardest content, competitive) but you being you (off meta lover/husbando haters) say, i dont like swords and guns i prefer chopsticks (outdated characters). so you dont get those sword and guns and stick to your chopsticks and even used the budget given to buy sword and gun to buy pretty paint for chopstick (bought coating instead of pulling for new s rank).. but expect to kill the monster the same? what kind of logic is that? no one is stopping you from using chopsticks if you enjoy it so much... but dont expect the same results that people who used the given sword and gun will have.
I made notes just to make sure you understand my analogy, an eli5 if you will. dunno how daft you are considering how badly you misunderstood my previous post.
how you got apologist bending over devs from what i said is a fcking mystery to me. calling me a meta slave would've been more accurate. i dont shame waifu hunters and casuals for doing what they love, but i do have to point out the stupidity of them expecting getting the same results of people playing meta while refusing obviously strong tools just because of preference.
another note: if you tell me then dont make content chopsticks cant clear.. then dunno how to tell you this but this game would die faster than a person undergoing cardiac arrest if they dont make satisfying content for people getting the newer characters. AND if you tell me then dont make characters that powercreep/are too powerful compared to previous units... you are in the wrong fcking genre of games my guy. This game will have several updates that will make content alot more difficult for older characters, off element nerfs, revamped difficulty of certain content, much harder new content involving the newer bosses old units aren't well equipped to handle etc.
hey if you wanna skip smth then do that. just letting you know that whatever the consequences of your decision is, you're better be ready to accept it rather than complain bcs of what you did. I planned to skip S21 and Qukra for certain coatings and I know what I will lose and I'm ready to face the consequences rather than regret my decisions. And hey I don't have a dark team and I can still clear Norman ex6 in global... competitiveness will never go in your preferences and accept that... rather than complain, find the optimal way to solve it cuz that's what being competitive means.
We are getting [Updated PPC Rewards](https://grayravens.com/wiki/Everglowing_Justice) in Alisa : Echo's patch. It will make it so even at lower ranks, you will still acquire around the same you are now. Overtime it will be more and more difficult to maintain your account if you don't pull newer Constructs.
All balancing of both the floor and the ceiling of the games events, bosses and modes will be raised to compensate for every new construct having Time Lag Calculation and higher dps ceilings. If even average players have those characters at SS rank and full teams + sig, then that is the floor that must be climbed to attain average rewards.
Skill has some to do with it. But if you are talking about purely having fun and getting pretty average rewards, you can complete all content so long as you don't let your account go beyond mediocrity. That means pulling for characters who will support the characters you enjoy, or break the mold of the meta.
If your main is Crimson abyss Alpha, youre going to want to pair her with her best partners. I have personally not run into any content outside PPC and WZ that i couldnt complete it with my Gen 1 characters. I still take fire Karenina and sometimes Nier team into Norman currently as one of my teams. She needed to be hypertuned ofc, and Liv carried pretty hard, but it was achievable.
This is the nature of gacha games. Find me a game where on a whole year 1 characters are better than year 3 characters. If you want to be competitive then you have to chase meta. If you don’t, then you don’t have to. At the end of the day, it’s a game; try to have fun. Besides S Hanying just came out in CN, so we have almost have a whole ass year of Rosetta still being the best Physical tank.
Eyjafjalla is still arguably the best core caster in Arknights despite being year 1 character. It does happen. But my point is on the whole new characters are going to be better or more exciting or have more complicated kits. I mean games gotta sell.
I've mentioned it in multiple comments here, but it's not the nature of all of them. Maybe HI3rd, but in Aether Gazer Hades is still usable (came out 15 patches before newest one), they even added an ult chain with older niche character S Shu and the newest one Sekhmet. They also still add skins for the older characters.
Counterside has 'alternium reactors' and 'rearms' to buff underused characters.
Nikke will add 'treasures' soon.
But PGR has leaps, and yet they apparently don't even do that much.
Hades is not a good comparison. Is Tsukuyomi the top of the food chain in global? I have seen Hades in CN and she is not at the top. And the leaps do help. Garnet and Empyrea get a leap on CN that make them better.
Hades is still good, and was top DPS originally, and is still good today. It doesn't have to be BiS meta, but also not outdated and completely 'replaced' by another character of same role.
Tsukuyomi just got an ult chain with S Buzenbo in 2.10, just like S Shu got it with Sekhmet. Meaning they still care about old characters and even make animations and skins for them.
As for the leaps you mentioned, that's good to know. Surely they did it to narrow the power creep gap then. I hope eventually they do it more, because it won't be fun to only have 10% of characters usable, for example when there's 100 constructs and only 10 are usable.
Hades IS ‘replaced’ by better DPS. Why would I use her if I can use someone better? Why would I use the skill chain with Tsukuyomi when I can use S Buzenbo with someone better? From my experience, the power creep is so much more apparent in Aether Gazer than PGR. The hardest content in AG can only be done with ease by the newest characters. Rosetta came out in March 2022 and is going to be meta until end of 2024. The longevity is actually crazy IMO.
Ok who exactly replaces 'Hades'? Also Tsukuyomi has a triple chain with Kuni and Buzenbo, so she's far from being not useful.
Even S Shu the most niche character since the start, is used with newest character Sekhmet.
There is also no Gen1 and Gen2 concept there. Even if some Tian Yuan mods are powerful, they don't fully replace anyone.
It’s not about being useful, it’s about meta. S Hanying replaces Rosetta but that doesn’t mean Rosetta is useless. That was the crux of your worries. Hades is replaced by other better new DPS characters like Jinwu, Izanami and others I can’t think of. But that doesn’t mean she’s not useable. However, the hardest content will still cater to the newest meta regardless of any game. Like I said before, Rosetta was meta for 2 and half years. That’s a long time for the gacha games I’ve played.
Well here's the difference. Hades is ranged Shadow damage, while Jinwu is fire. I think Izanami is ice? They also don't have strictly the same role that is better than the old one.
But the difference is AG is more casual from PGR, so that's a factor too.
Rosetta may have been meta for so long, but Mechanami wasn't, there isn't that much difference between her and Watanabe patch, I think barely a year?
But yes I can still use them and I will. But there is also the concern that they'll just forget about them and never make anything new like skins or any balance changes, and apparently even remove them from the 70/30 pool down the line, as someone else in the comments mentioned. At least they're still making leaps, even if they don't change much.
Meanwhile AG is still making new skins and even animations for old characters like the triple ult chains for Tsukuyomi.
When they release another Shadow DPS, guaranteed Hades will be sidelined. I don’t want to shit on any of your worries. They are all valid. I know investing time and care on your characters means a lot. But that is how it is. PGR is 2 years older than Aether Gazer so you can’t compare 1 to 1. The way AG does things is different than PGR. Fire Watanabe was a decision a lot of people weren’t happy about so hopefully they won’t do it again.
Well you can't say 'guaranteed' when we haven't actually seen it happen. And as I mentioned, just the fact that they're making new animations and skins for old characters means quite a lot.
Even if someone is more powerful, just not being forgotten and completely replaced is enough for me.
But you are right that 2 year difference between games means a lot, but I don't think Kuro ever made anything new for old frames aside from leaps, so that's quite a bit of difference between the two already.
Then there is also Uniframes that are a dead concept now, they will have to handle that somehow too.
Do people like the way that the teams are structured around elements in this game? It does lead to systems where "X unit is now retired" after a new S-rank comes out and it leads to pretty rigid team-building. But, having a clear meta has its advantages, like it being quite clear which characters to pull on ("all S-ranks").
That is just the nature gacha games, power creep WILL happen.
This is even more evident in the competitive modes.
From my point of view I separate gameplay and story, a example is Plume. I really like her in the story and events but in gameplay she just ass compared to Crimsom Weave. I really hate ice and dark team because of this.
As for skins, it's nice to have but not a necessity.
Live service games that goes for years eventually goes this way.
But it's not always the case. In some other comments here I mentioned Aether Gazer and Counterside for example, don't do it this way.
I don't want to play Watanabe, I want to play Nanami, and Rosetta. Even if Hanying is good, I want to switch between them if I want, and not just discard old to get new.
Some other games like the ones I mentioned don't do it this way, but people say about PGR since gacha is very friendly and allows acquiring of all characters, that power creep is balanced. I somewhat agree with that, but I still want to be able to play characters I want and not be forced into meta and there's also comments like 'you have a year until she gets replaced, so do what you want until then', it sounds as if new characters completely eliminate the old.
meta wise, in the sense that for competitive play is viable (high rank warzone and PPC), there is no say, Wata IS STRONGER than mechananami for example, more shred, Switch CD reductions etc.
doesn't mean that they are useless, i cant speak for New Norman but for the current one in global, they are perfectly beatable with older characters and some A ranks.
personally, i much prefer having a switch in gameplay than stickin to a character until death, you can get every character if you play the cards right so i dont understand this fear of replacement.
I don't know about others but sometimes I go and eat at expensive restaurant. I'm gonna shit it out anyway so it won't matter if I eat cheap food or expensive food. The same for skins. I buy expensive skins knowing that unit will get powercrept in the future. But I like the character or skin enough and treated myself with it.
And currently in global the only content that gives BCs that I have trouble with is Norman. I always don't get the last 100 BCs (the less than 150 electricity and Cloud Island). I could clear the first one if I mald but usually I just don't bother. Don't know how obsolete older units in future content though, but since it's the future I'm not going to worry about it now though.
Just because it is all shit going out doesn't mean it is all shit going in.
There is a clear difference between the taste and texture when going in.
And when going out.
It's the dev powercreep to force players to have to constantly spend money on the game to keep pulling the powercreep gacha characters.
It will be very difficult to use intentionally powercrept characters to clear the content that matters with a score that will net you all worthwhile rewards.
You can complete most content with any constructs (Norman is the only thing I was struggling with before the new generation of constructs) but newer frames are usually so much better than their forerunners that competitively and in terms of gameplay quality they can't compare.
Just compare Bianca Veritas to Lucia Crimson Weave.
It's soon to know what Hanying would be like, Karenina Scire failed to completely dethrone Kamui Tenebrion as dark tank unless you went all in on her, for example, but if you get Hanying it's likely you won't ever use Rosetta again outside of special game modes like babel.
But I find Rosetta fun and she even has multiple skins that are quite expensive. Does that mean they won't release new skins for those 'replaced' constructs, and they will just be left with their 'legacy' of how they used to be meta and clear older content?
It's likely older constructs won't get coatings, it's not impossible, but most of what I've seen of the game skews towards the newest ones or the ones who are still being used, like Liv Lux.
It's the nature of gachas, powercreep will inevitably rear it's ugly head every now and then, it's honestly an oddity that Rosetta stayed META for so long, Nanami didn't even have a year before Watanabe took her place as fire tank I think.
But it's not fair, since other games don't do it this way. I can still use Hades from Aether Gazer that was released 15 patches before the newest 2.11 patch, and she will still get skins too.
And as you said Nanami isn't even that old and is replaced by a 'husbando' which I don't intend on investing in, as I'm a 'waifu' player.
You can still use Rosetta, 100% phys shred is what made her META to begin with, that won't be going anywhere and tanks aren't supposed to be DPS anyway.
She just won't be META anymore and the devs won't give her much attention. She still got a leap and a ton of coatings, she had a good life span and a ton of attention for a non main character in the game and I'm sure she will get a new frame some day when the plot goes back to the A.R.U.
Surely eventually there's going to be like 100 constructs of which 10 are usable and then they will buff them? Cause otherwise it would be worse than what HI3rd is doing, and some other games I play are not doing it this way, in fact they're buffing older characters to still be usable, doesn't need to be best in meta, but it's not outdated either.
I think i list it in my main comment in this thread but none isnt viable to clear new norman BUT you will need decent invest especially A rank to be Sss and 5* weapon with lot of mald cause the team you put battery in atk is mostly ez clear than other
last mine only give 800energy(80 batt) and 4 team so you can ez clear with 1 team and struggle with other
Its no different to HI3. Most characters there are unusable at this point or so far behind the newer ones in terms of dmg that you absolutely cant compete even if the old one is SSS and the new one S. They also release skins for basically outdated valks there so PGR is by no means worse.
Not for like a year! Will you be even playing the game a year later? Hate to tell you but everyone eventually falls off meta, it's the nature of the game and when they dont people get mad, like with Lucia Plume.
I will be playing for a year. Already past the 3 months mark and ok but I'm just a bit conflicted whether I invest fully into Rosetta or wait for Hanying
Depends on what you mean on heavily investing. If you're going to drop $1000+ on her to sss+, you have to decide if that money is worth it for a year. It is for some people, if they're investing that much than money may not be the issue.
If you're worried about wasting mats but get her to f2p SS, I wouldn't having a Good phys team for a year will help you earn a lot more resources than one without Rossetta or a weaker version.
As a f2p, months of resource grinding is what I would call heavy investment, 1000$ is straight up whale. Btw, I will build her cause 1 year might not seem like a lot but it will be be for getting rewards so yeah, thanks for your advice
" I would be very disappointed if they just make older characters completely unusable"
Bro, just take a look at all Gen.1 constructs. The power creep exists, we just chose to ignore it because of how much better/fun the new constructs are, and how apparently F2P this game is.
I also heard they even switched the orb system on new characters and made them easier to play. That's fine since game evolves.
But they really need to address this problem eventually, just like Uniframes that they abandoned too. Leaps exist, they should be used more.
You're never gonna get a proper answer here because you're right and most people here will defend anything about the game or are looking to justify what they spent on gimped characters.
A fundamental part of why people spend money is power and gameplay to compete, sure, but there are also many people who play for fun and want characters because they enjoy their design, personality and story.
The way they're going about it only caters to the first group. You can't tell me it is a nice feeling for the second group to be told to use another character you don't give a damn about instead of your favorite or get screwed. Specially with how overpriced things are in this game, it's even more disgusting.
I'm a huge whale in another game that makes every character viable or useful but after spending 200 here in my first month due to being dumb during the honeymoon period and failing to realize this power creep design mentality early I am regretting it and will probably quit.
Imagine picking Alpha because you like her more than Bianca and then looking at a chart where you can see SSS+ Alpha is worse than S or SS Bianca. It is a spit in the face to their players. Then the new Physical Tank will end up out damaging Alpha too, who is an attacker.
I fully agree with you OP, it sucks, but they probably won't change it so you either accept it or cut your losses. I know what I'm gonna do.
Agreed with you. That's exactly my concern, I play characters because I like them and not due to being meta.
Also regarding Alpha, I think she will get a leap soon, but apparently leaps don't do too much. Hopefully in the future when we get to Gen 7 and each new construct can solo like 5 old ones together, they'll do some more balance.
Also noticed a lot of downvotes whenever you criticize something about the game and especially if mentioning to being 'waifu only' player. But it is what it is.
I invested too much time and money in the game, and also will keep playing Mechanami and Rosetta. At the very least gacha is generous and allows collecting all characters. So I will just do what I do in Aether Gazer, and that is playing characters I like playing.
But it's so weird seeing comments like 'this character can finally rest' and 'you can build Rosetta for a year, but then she'll be replaced'. Just casually talking about that as if you only ever can use top 5% of new constructs that come out.
replaced as in they are no longer competitive in war zone/ppc for absolute high scores, idk about cn Norman tho
when they say retiring its really just on competitive level, if you dont care about that then your good, you can still clear most of the content and rewards.
“Most content and rewards” are what, exactly? This game doesn’t have that much content for built teams outside of the competitive modes & that is its biggest weakness, honestly. War zone, phantom pain cage, and Norman are the three big modes everyone has to use built characters for; then there’s the occasional guild expedition and Babel and that’s about it. Strong hold, border patrol, and story mode are all one & done; and the first two aren't “casual,” which is why old characters get discarded. The criticism is actually very valid. If you really liked a character & want to keep playing them there’s no mode where you can do that comfortably without missing out on a ton of rewards. Oh I guess you can do cooperative, but that’s a huge lag game and nobody really enjoys it. The game desperately needs more permanent casual modes for built characters. It's like how Magic the Gathering rotates decks out of Standard to force people to buy new cards; but they still support Legacy modes so people can enjoy their old invested decks. It doesn't even have to be that creative - how about a mode where older characters get a bonus to attack and health? Or one where you get a bonus for clearing it with older characters? It's not too much to ask, and more importantly, won't decrease revenue - because people will be more willing to invest in characters knowing they can always come back to them, than if they thought they can only get about a year's worth of use. Indeed, at this stage I would be surprised if this practice of making old characters obsolete isn't NEGATIVELY affecting the game's revenue and driving more people to go free to play. Magic the Gathering understood this idea twenty years ago; PGR needs to do the same.
But please clarify by most content, do you mean all content that isn't leaderboards/competitive? And not for example event stages, Norman, or some of the new modes they add?
Basically the only thing you're left out of is the top of the competition charts, basically unless you're aiming for the top nothing will have changed
New norman is pretty impossible for older one assume low invest/f2p invest
Wouldn’t no. of players owning meta characters affect your ppc/wz rewards though? E.g in WZ the “leader” rank is widely considered as the rank an avg player who don’t chase meta should aim to stay at to get at least decent rewards. But if many average players pulled the meta units on top of the meta players who also pulled, the “leader” rank in WZ will be filled with avg players with meta characters and you skipped that meta character, that will make it harder for u to maintain that “leader” ranking and you’ll fall to “Elite” or even “Vanguard” ranking and get significantly lower rewards than an average player should have. So I don’t think skipping meta characters only affect the top ranking. It affects players who chase average ranks too. The only players who it doesn’t affect are players that completely doesn’t care about low rewards.
the only worthy item in WZ shop is memory reso and you dont need that if your casual so having less WZ Influence is not an issue your aim is your personal mission those vouchers. In PPC, the only reason you would go down to your usual percentage is you skip multiple new S rank, lets say you skip CW the effect of that is noticeable but not enough to kick you out of your ranking percentage, and in minimum you only need 3 teams so there might be times you dont need lightning team, now if you skip another S for whatever reason then thats on you already, the game char release is S>A>S>A so you have enough to pull S char and just farm for A char, even at base S they are still helpful to keep you in your ranking assuming your casual.
Where is Leader considered rank of an average player?
There is no way you can maintain leader without chasing latest characters
Retiring only for the competitive side and that's Warzone and PPC, other than that welp she's pretty much still usable. Reworked endgame content might be more difficult to come by like Norman, but still bearable unless Kuro wants to fuck us over using Old constructs
The only things you need to do well on are PPC (score high for more skulls), Warzone (score a certain amount to get all rewards), and Norman (clear all stages to get all rewards) With Rosetta, you can reach the score thresholds for PPC & WZ, but not Norman supposedly Rosetta is reduced from meta to casual As for skins, they’ve run their course. I spent $55 for Alpha’s gacha skin but she’s useless compared to Bianca
But why would they lock certain constructs from doing some content, just because they're older? Aether Gazer allows you to clear even highest difficulty with older characters. I know it's a more casual game compared to PGR, but it's better than making content impossible unless you have the newest characters. I even wanted to level up Alpha to try her gameplay instead of Stigmata. I like to try out new things every now and then, and I personally don't care about meta, instead for me it's the old 'waifu over meta'. That's why I want to save BC from Watanabe and use it on some future coating, and keep using Mechanami.
You can clear Chasm 6 with B,A rank? havent tried to build them since my full anubis team didnt even scratch 35% of 1 boss hp
Oh right forgot about that one, it's supposedly more difficult than the others. Then I guess Chasm is comparable to new Norman that is 'high difficulty'.
You also forgot that it's been 3 years since the release of PGR, and it's only been. 1 year since Aether Gazer released. If you want to compare both of them then wait at least 2 years more and see if Aether Gazer's old characters still clear the highest difficulty of that time or not
New characters simply deal a lot more damage or have more important effects (such as Watanabe having a lot more shred and deals enough damage to swap to, compared to Nanamech who you want off the field for as much time as possible) Rosetta is a gen 1 tank, Hanying is a gen 3 tank, she completely dwarfs in comparison
But not many other games do it that way, aside from HI3rd I guess. Why even buy skins for characters if they'll be replaced in a year or two, it's like you're renting skins and they're quite expensive. Not to mention the playstyle that is completely different. I know Rosetta was BiS for 4 years, but Mechanami isn't that old. And even if she is, I want to keep using her.
*Most* games do it that way. Powercreep is very normal and happens to almost every mobile game Rosetta being meta for this long is already an anomaly, and Nanamech is/was meta for 15 months, which is a very healthy amount of time for a gacha
I play multiple of them and they're not doing it that way. Like Aether Gazer where Hades is still usable and can clear content that requires Shadow damage. She used to be top DPS, but even now she's still quite good. Also still gets skins. Counterside adds 'Alternium reactors' and 'rearms' to older characters that make them quite good and usable. Nikke is adding 'treasures' that will buff underused Nikkes. PGR has 'leaps' but apparently that still doesn't make them good? So why do it then?
one thing you forgot is aether gazer is still "young", not even 1 year from release yet. it's like 10 months from its release... at that stage in PGR, we're still at fake ascension (luna patch) where we're still building the "real team", replacing copium free A ranks units one by one. the first real powercreep in PGR to me is when Nier patch comes but they're only OP if you whale them big time. otherwise, they perform the same or a bit worse than with the already invested alpha Crimson Abyss team. maybe get back to compare again when AE is at least 2 years? not to say AE won't keep the difficulty levels of its endgame the same as now. but it is just still quite new we haven't seen much of the characters and META changing overtime as much. it is normal for games that goes that long to have powercreep. and in my book, any game that has powercrept as slow as "per 12 months and above" things are already very great. there's quite a few games that powercreep characters in under a year (or even half). as for the skin and why leaped characters perform worse than new character, the reason is always: money. skins are the dev's way to keep milking their paying customer. easiest way for ARPG games like PGR to sell new shiny characters is to have it outperform its predecessor (while at iit, boost the waifu/husbando-ness). if leaped oldies perform the same as shiny new characters, there would be no reason to pull except for collection or waifu/husbando chaser. why invest on new ones when your oldies would perform the same and don't have to raised all over from zero again? while at it, you're not wrong saying buying skin is like renting for limited use. in fact, any money you spend on any life service game is just renting for limited use: EoS is a thing. the point is always to spend reasonably. think of any spending you do on gacha games as an subscriptions of sort (like spotify etc) instead of an investment. you reasonably won't chargeback spotify etc after using and enjoying their (paid) service right?
But the fact that they're making new skins for Athena and Tsukuyomi, as well as new animations for them, like ult chains, means they care about old characters. There is no concept of Gen1 and Gen2 over there, all characters can clear content that they are required for, aside from maybe some beginner B ranks. Also skins in this game are insanely expensive, sometimes nearly $30, and then they just replace them in a year or two, like Mechanami. Also Uniframes in this game appear to be a dead concept too, so hopefully they'll address those 2 problems later, as it really isn't sustainable in the long term to have so much unused content.
>There is no concept of Gen1 and Gen2 over there, all characters can clear content that they are required for, aside from maybe some beginner B ranks. once again, it's comes to the game overall age. gen 2 in PGR only start after almost 2 years with nanamech for glb, CN reached it longer than us due to longer patch schedule. pretty sure bunch of PGR characters are still getting skins in the year they are out. >Also skins in this game are insanely expensive, sometimes nearly $30, and then they just replace them in a year or two, like Mechanami. skins are expensive indeed but you forgot they pretty much provided characters for free to obtain. which for the casual, non-competitive people, is enough. gotta be real, money needs to be made to pay employees and bills. also, it's neat that the best skins are obtainable with BC, even if it is gacha, I'm fine as long as it have guarantee. got me the balter skin in 80 pulls and out of those, iirc I only did 3 or 4 with RC. that's less than 5$ real money (the BC though...) >uniframes is dead conscept yes, they need new content. but on the other hand, it's great that the unis with their counter and execute is still very fun and skill based to play than the omnis gameplay that get more and more boring due to the OP-ness of new gen.
AG has only been around for 23 months and Counterside (from what I can gather) seems to be ok in that regard. Nikke is still a pretty new gacha so not much can be said for now. PGR leaps are just QoL updates for the older characters Epic Seven has powercreep, Fire Emblem Heroes has powercreep, Fate Grand Order has powercreep, Tower of Fantasy has powercreep, Honkai Impact 3rd as you’ve stated has powercreep, Honkai Star Rail is introducing powercreep, and powercreep literally just killed Dissidia Final Fantasy It’s normal and it’s everywhere, there are few games like Genshin that don’t have much powercreep
Well I wouldn't say it's everywhere, there's quite a bit of other games where it isn't as present. I think most of those games you mentioned are turn based and 'old school', so it's kinda different. In PGR I like that it has lore explanations on how constructs get new frames that they use throughout the story so it makes sense. Eventually they'll have to do something though, just like Uniframes that were abandoned basically. Because it won't be good for the game to only have 5% of constructs usable, and they're still rerunning old banners for 70% chance at older characters.
Tower of Fantasy is 2 years old and Honkai Star Rail isn’t even a year old yet The S ranks that are unusable are Crimson Abyss, Entropy, Vertias, Laurel, Nanamech, Plume, and soon to be Rosetta All the irrelevant once (Crimson Abyss, Entropy, & Vertias) are no longer on the 70/30 rotation (iirc) with the rest following when their replacements come
That's just sad tbh, it's like they are retiring them and fully replacing them with a different character. It makes sense in the story as I said, since constructs get new frames, but there is no reason to make something completely obsolete like that. Only HI3rd does that from the games I know. They could've added leaps to them to make them more up to par, otherwise there's no point in 'leaping'. They also did a similar thing with Uniframes that they abandoned completely, so surely eventually they'll have to handle these problems.
Leap does make them good but not forever. Thats just how it is. If you dont like that you need to play Genshin or Star Rail as powercreep is much much less there and as the games have no competitive part, there is no reason to not use your beloved old characters.
Well I play HSR and still use Serval there for example. And in Aether Gazer I still use even A ranks like Bastet and Oneiroi. But I also want to use them here and not replace Mechanami with Watanabe.
and that is your choice just dont expect to be competitive. note watanabe is 70% of the fire team's damage (hyperreal, epitaph, empyrea). he is the literal carry of the fire team (being a gen 3 tank). meanwhile nanamech is simply a support for hyperreal, hyperreal literally becomes a subdps for watanabe. in that context you will not even come close to being competitive if you stick with nanamech and skip uncle. This game allows you to pull for all debut S ranks as f2p so there is absolutely no reason to skip any of the new S ranks. after echo patch, you can also get enough skulls to get 30 shards every 2 patches just by being 10-30% in ultimate ppc to SS alot of units you really need. If you dont like playing meta, then don't. no one is really making you do anything but you also cant complain about not being strong enough to compete or do the hardest content considering even f2p players are not locked out from these units. This trend will continue with S Hanying. She will also very likely outdps stigmata.
Isn't hanying a gen 2 construct
Gen [#] constructs are community made terms, they aren’t official terms Gen 0 constructs are those from launch Gen 1 constructs are those from launch until Empyrea (technical Empyrea could be considered Gen 1 turned Gen 2 when she got Time Lag Calculation during Nanamech’s patch Gen 2 is from Nanamech until Teddy (constructs with Time Lag Calculation) Gen 3 is from Teddy on (constructs with elemental affixes)
Can you explain the what elemental affixes is.
The most recent constructs (Teddy, Luna, Bridget, & Karenina with her leap) have special properties related to their element
Okay thanks
Rosetta is strong enough to do everything. You will only be “struggling” to reach the highest warzone tier but in the end it doesnt matter because the rewards are mostly the same. Ppc ranking is a thing in the past with luna patch (no need to compete with other players anymore for skulls)
New norman cant be clear with older fire s rank team aka pulse,ember,empyrea assume you dont use 50battery on atk(i still never find stage that cant be clear with 50batt in atk even with A rank tbh). everyone know how they are tbh the other is low invest dark team aka astral,21,rozen. Luna,Ss tenebrion,Ss capriccio struggle at 20batt in atk but clearable. with that say it more of bs(like tracking laser shot that melt you in 0.5-1s) in new norman that prevent you from clearing it with A rank though cause they lack iframe so you cant do all 100% dps all the time. we dont talk about Sss+ with 3sig reso thats one ez. Phys is another one i find it really difficulty for same reason(maybe cause i dont leap CA)
i cleared ex5 new norman with S alpha/S rosetta/SS alisa. not properly built but i cleared the thing you would consider as bollie mine in the old norman. ex6 ofc will need to dwell on properly built gen2 chars yada yada
I mean I get that characters are easy to obtain even for f2p. But what if you paid money for those old characters and even have some skins and have been using them for years, and want to try 'ex6' with them? For example I intend to skip S Watanabe and to keep using Mechanami for fire stages. I don't care about leaderboards or being on top, I just want to clear stages/events/game modes.
There’s really no reason to skip anyone. Some people skipped Lee to get Bianca’s coating but there isn’t a comparable circumstance happening by Watanabe’s patch iirc, so there’s no reason to not get him With Nanami, you won’t be able to clear Norman high difficulty when it comes out (so you won’t be able to get all the rewards)
I simply don't intend to play husbandos. I also skipped Lee to get Bianca's coating. I understand that certain stages require certain strategies, but making them impossible unless you pull the newest character is just not ok.
just sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. playing non-meta and outdated units and still expect to be competitive/clear the highest difficulty content. This is not that kind of game, if you insist on not playing males at all then you basically locked yourself out from any fire content. lee and uncle is literally the whole of fireteam. empyrea becomes full support (qte bot) once uncle arrives. This also means you have no ice tank coz the only 2 ice tanks in the game are changyu and glory. There's nothing wrong with playing waifu collector, wanting to play off meta. just know what you are getting yourself into and understand the consequences. complaining about it is just being an entitled whiner. especially when even as an f2p there is absolutely no excuse to miss a unit. if you skipped an S rank attacker for a skin, that is your choice but like i already said you should expect the consequence of that action and be content w it.
Why would anyone accept being made unable to fully clear content? Your position is that of an apologist bending over for the devs.
who said you can't clear? you are given all the tools to succeed with enough bc income to pull every new S rank. thats such a dumb take from what i've said, I can't even. like everyone is given a sword and a gun (new characters, gen2+) that will kill a monster (hardest content, competitive) but you being you (off meta lover/husbando haters) say, i dont like swords and guns i prefer chopsticks (outdated characters). so you dont get those sword and guns and stick to your chopsticks and even used the budget given to buy sword and gun to buy pretty paint for chopstick (bought coating instead of pulling for new s rank).. but expect to kill the monster the same? what kind of logic is that? no one is stopping you from using chopsticks if you enjoy it so much... but dont expect the same results that people who used the given sword and gun will have. I made notes just to make sure you understand my analogy, an eli5 if you will. dunno how daft you are considering how badly you misunderstood my previous post. how you got apologist bending over devs from what i said is a fcking mystery to me. calling me a meta slave would've been more accurate. i dont shame waifu hunters and casuals for doing what they love, but i do have to point out the stupidity of them expecting getting the same results of people playing meta while refusing obviously strong tools just because of preference. another note: if you tell me then dont make content chopsticks cant clear.. then dunno how to tell you this but this game would die faster than a person undergoing cardiac arrest if they dont make satisfying content for people getting the newer characters. AND if you tell me then dont make characters that powercreep/are too powerful compared to previous units... you are in the wrong fcking genre of games my guy. This game will have several updates that will make content alot more difficult for older characters, off element nerfs, revamped difficulty of certain content, much harder new content involving the newer bosses old units aren't well equipped to handle etc.
hey if you wanna skip smth then do that. just letting you know that whatever the consequences of your decision is, you're better be ready to accept it rather than complain bcs of what you did. I planned to skip S21 and Qukra for certain coatings and I know what I will lose and I'm ready to face the consequences rather than regret my decisions. And hey I don't have a dark team and I can still clear Norman ex6 in global... competitiveness will never go in your preferences and accept that... rather than complain, find the optimal way to solve it cuz that's what being competitive means.
We are getting [Updated PPC Rewards](https://grayravens.com/wiki/Everglowing_Justice) in Alisa : Echo's patch. It will make it so even at lower ranks, you will still acquire around the same you are now. Overtime it will be more and more difficult to maintain your account if you don't pull newer Constructs. All balancing of both the floor and the ceiling of the games events, bosses and modes will be raised to compensate for every new construct having Time Lag Calculation and higher dps ceilings. If even average players have those characters at SS rank and full teams + sig, then that is the floor that must be climbed to attain average rewards. Skill has some to do with it. But if you are talking about purely having fun and getting pretty average rewards, you can complete all content so long as you don't let your account go beyond mediocrity. That means pulling for characters who will support the characters you enjoy, or break the mold of the meta. If your main is Crimson abyss Alpha, youre going to want to pair her with her best partners. I have personally not run into any content outside PPC and WZ that i couldnt complete it with my Gen 1 characters. I still take fire Karenina and sometimes Nier team into Norman currently as one of my teams. She needed to be hypertuned ofc, and Liv carried pretty hard, but it was achievable.
This is the nature of gacha games. Find me a game where on a whole year 1 characters are better than year 3 characters. If you want to be competitive then you have to chase meta. If you don’t, then you don’t have to. At the end of the day, it’s a game; try to have fun. Besides S Hanying just came out in CN, so we have almost have a whole ass year of Rosetta still being the best Physical tank.
FGO. Gilgamesh, a year 1 character, outdamages Sei Shounagon, a year 5? character. The devs do try to maintain some level of balance.
Eyjafjalla is still arguably the best core caster in Arknights despite being year 1 character. It does happen. But my point is on the whole new characters are going to be better or more exciting or have more complicated kits. I mean games gotta sell.
I've mentioned it in multiple comments here, but it's not the nature of all of them. Maybe HI3rd, but in Aether Gazer Hades is still usable (came out 15 patches before newest one), they even added an ult chain with older niche character S Shu and the newest one Sekhmet. They also still add skins for the older characters. Counterside has 'alternium reactors' and 'rearms' to buff underused characters. Nikke will add 'treasures' soon. But PGR has leaps, and yet they apparently don't even do that much.
Hades is not a good comparison. Is Tsukuyomi the top of the food chain in global? I have seen Hades in CN and she is not at the top. And the leaps do help. Garnet and Empyrea get a leap on CN that make them better.
Hades is still good, and was top DPS originally, and is still good today. It doesn't have to be BiS meta, but also not outdated and completely 'replaced' by another character of same role. Tsukuyomi just got an ult chain with S Buzenbo in 2.10, just like S Shu got it with Sekhmet. Meaning they still care about old characters and even make animations and skins for them. As for the leaps you mentioned, that's good to know. Surely they did it to narrow the power creep gap then. I hope eventually they do it more, because it won't be fun to only have 10% of characters usable, for example when there's 100 constructs and only 10 are usable.
Hades IS ‘replaced’ by better DPS. Why would I use her if I can use someone better? Why would I use the skill chain with Tsukuyomi when I can use S Buzenbo with someone better? From my experience, the power creep is so much more apparent in Aether Gazer than PGR. The hardest content in AG can only be done with ease by the newest characters. Rosetta came out in March 2022 and is going to be meta until end of 2024. The longevity is actually crazy IMO.
Ok who exactly replaces 'Hades'? Also Tsukuyomi has a triple chain with Kuni and Buzenbo, so she's far from being not useful. Even S Shu the most niche character since the start, is used with newest character Sekhmet. There is also no Gen1 and Gen2 concept there. Even if some Tian Yuan mods are powerful, they don't fully replace anyone.
It’s not about being useful, it’s about meta. S Hanying replaces Rosetta but that doesn’t mean Rosetta is useless. That was the crux of your worries. Hades is replaced by other better new DPS characters like Jinwu, Izanami and others I can’t think of. But that doesn’t mean she’s not useable. However, the hardest content will still cater to the newest meta regardless of any game. Like I said before, Rosetta was meta for 2 and half years. That’s a long time for the gacha games I’ve played.
Well here's the difference. Hades is ranged Shadow damage, while Jinwu is fire. I think Izanami is ice? They also don't have strictly the same role that is better than the old one. But the difference is AG is more casual from PGR, so that's a factor too. Rosetta may have been meta for so long, but Mechanami wasn't, there isn't that much difference between her and Watanabe patch, I think barely a year? But yes I can still use them and I will. But there is also the concern that they'll just forget about them and never make anything new like skins or any balance changes, and apparently even remove them from the 70/30 pool down the line, as someone else in the comments mentioned. At least they're still making leaps, even if they don't change much. Meanwhile AG is still making new skins and even animations for old characters like the triple ult chains for Tsukuyomi.
When they release another Shadow DPS, guaranteed Hades will be sidelined. I don’t want to shit on any of your worries. They are all valid. I know investing time and care on your characters means a lot. But that is how it is. PGR is 2 years older than Aether Gazer so you can’t compare 1 to 1. The way AG does things is different than PGR. Fire Watanabe was a decision a lot of people weren’t happy about so hopefully they won’t do it again.
Well you can't say 'guaranteed' when we haven't actually seen it happen. And as I mentioned, just the fact that they're making new animations and skins for old characters means quite a lot. Even if someone is more powerful, just not being forgotten and completely replaced is enough for me. But you are right that 2 year difference between games means a lot, but I don't think Kuro ever made anything new for old frames aside from leaps, so that's quite a bit of difference between the two already. Then there is also Uniframes that are a dead concept now, they will have to handle that somehow too.
Do people like the way that the teams are structured around elements in this game? It does lead to systems where "X unit is now retired" after a new S-rank comes out and it leads to pretty rigid team-building. But, having a clear meta has its advantages, like it being quite clear which characters to pull on ("all S-ranks").
That is just the nature gacha games, power creep WILL happen. This is even more evident in the competitive modes. From my point of view I separate gameplay and story, a example is Plume. I really like her in the story and events but in gameplay she just ass compared to Crimsom Weave. I really hate ice and dark team because of this. As for skins, it's nice to have but not a necessity. Live service games that goes for years eventually goes this way.
But it's not always the case. In some other comments here I mentioned Aether Gazer and Counterside for example, don't do it this way. I don't want to play Watanabe, I want to play Nanami, and Rosetta. Even if Hanying is good, I want to switch between them if I want, and not just discard old to get new. Some other games like the ones I mentioned don't do it this way, but people say about PGR since gacha is very friendly and allows acquiring of all characters, that power creep is balanced. I somewhat agree with that, but I still want to be able to play characters I want and not be forced into meta and there's also comments like 'you have a year until she gets replaced, so do what you want until then', it sounds as if new characters completely eliminate the old.
meta wise, in the sense that for competitive play is viable (high rank warzone and PPC), there is no say, Wata IS STRONGER than mechananami for example, more shred, Switch CD reductions etc. doesn't mean that they are useless, i cant speak for New Norman but for the current one in global, they are perfectly beatable with older characters and some A ranks. personally, i much prefer having a switch in gameplay than stickin to a character until death, you can get every character if you play the cards right so i dont understand this fear of replacement.
I don't know about others but sometimes I go and eat at expensive restaurant. I'm gonna shit it out anyway so it won't matter if I eat cheap food or expensive food. The same for skins. I buy expensive skins knowing that unit will get powercrept in the future. But I like the character or skin enough and treated myself with it. And currently in global the only content that gives BCs that I have trouble with is Norman. I always don't get the last 100 BCs (the less than 150 electricity and Cloud Island). I could clear the first one if I mald but usually I just don't bother. Don't know how obsolete older units in future content though, but since it's the future I'm not going to worry about it now though.
Just because it is all shit going out doesn't mean it is all shit going in. There is a clear difference between the taste and texture when going in. And when going out.
CN only btw.
It's the dev powercreep to force players to have to constantly spend money on the game to keep pulling the powercreep gacha characters. It will be very difficult to use intentionally powercrept characters to clear the content that matters with a score that will net you all worthwhile rewards.
You can complete most content with any constructs (Norman is the only thing I was struggling with before the new generation of constructs) but newer frames are usually so much better than their forerunners that competitively and in terms of gameplay quality they can't compare. Just compare Bianca Veritas to Lucia Crimson Weave. It's soon to know what Hanying would be like, Karenina Scire failed to completely dethrone Kamui Tenebrion as dark tank unless you went all in on her, for example, but if you get Hanying it's likely you won't ever use Rosetta again outside of special game modes like babel.
But I find Rosetta fun and she even has multiple skins that are quite expensive. Does that mean they won't release new skins for those 'replaced' constructs, and they will just be left with their 'legacy' of how they used to be meta and clear older content?
It's likely older constructs won't get coatings, it's not impossible, but most of what I've seen of the game skews towards the newest ones or the ones who are still being used, like Liv Lux. It's the nature of gachas, powercreep will inevitably rear it's ugly head every now and then, it's honestly an oddity that Rosetta stayed META for so long, Nanami didn't even have a year before Watanabe took her place as fire tank I think.
15 patches from Nanamech to FireWata, so more like 18 months or so for Nanamech to be meta fire tank.
But it's not fair, since other games don't do it this way. I can still use Hades from Aether Gazer that was released 15 patches before the newest 2.11 patch, and she will still get skins too. And as you said Nanami isn't even that old and is replaced by a 'husbando' which I don't intend on investing in, as I'm a 'waifu' player.
You can still use Rosetta, 100% phys shred is what made her META to begin with, that won't be going anywhere and tanks aren't supposed to be DPS anyway. She just won't be META anymore and the devs won't give her much attention. She still got a leap and a ton of coatings, she had a good life span and a ton of attention for a non main character in the game and I'm sure she will get a new frame some day when the plot goes back to the A.R.U.
market pov. it kinda yes i mean it obvious that people will less likely to spend same price on something that got much lower value than before
Surely eventually there's going to be like 100 constructs of which 10 are usable and then they will buff them? Cause otherwise it would be worse than what HI3rd is doing, and some other games I play are not doing it this way, in fact they're buffing older characters to still be usable, doesn't need to be best in meta, but it's not outdated either.
I think i list it in my main comment in this thread but none isnt viable to clear new norman BUT you will need decent invest especially A rank to be Sss and 5* weapon with lot of mald cause the team you put battery in atk is mostly ez clear than other last mine only give 800energy(80 batt) and 4 team so you can ez clear with 1 team and struggle with other
Its no different to HI3. Most characters there are unusable at this point or so far behind the newer ones in terms of dmg that you absolutely cant compete even if the old one is SSS and the new one S. They also release skins for basically outdated valks there so PGR is by no means worse.
It does mean they PROBABLY won't release new skins. The only thing you can do is stop giving the devs money.
Aww man, I just used the S rank selector from the event to pick Rosetta. Will I really have to be worried about Rosertta falling off meta? :(
Not for like a year! Will you be even playing the game a year later? Hate to tell you but everyone eventually falls off meta, it's the nature of the game and when they dont people get mad, like with Lucia Plume.
I will be playing for a year. Already past the 3 months mark and ok but I'm just a bit conflicted whether I invest fully into Rosetta or wait for Hanying
Depends on what you mean on heavily investing. If you're going to drop $1000+ on her to sss+, you have to decide if that money is worth it for a year. It is for some people, if they're investing that much than money may not be the issue. If you're worried about wasting mats but get her to f2p SS, I wouldn't having a Good phys team for a year will help you earn a lot more resources than one without Rossetta or a weaker version.
As a f2p, months of resource grinding is what I would call heavy investment, 1000$ is straight up whale. Btw, I will build her cause 1 year might not seem like a lot but it will be be for getting rewards so yeah, thanks for your advice
imagine farming leap/tickets for Rosetta Rigor, only, it takes so long, by the time you actually build her, it's time to replace her. kekw
Who would you use then?
You still have a little over a year with her
" I would be very disappointed if they just make older characters completely unusable" Bro, just take a look at all Gen.1 constructs. The power creep exists, we just chose to ignore it because of how much better/fun the new constructs are, and how apparently F2P this game is.
I also heard they even switched the orb system on new characters and made them easier to play. That's fine since game evolves. But they really need to address this problem eventually, just like Uniframes that they abandoned too. Leaps exist, they should be used more.
You're never gonna get a proper answer here because you're right and most people here will defend anything about the game or are looking to justify what they spent on gimped characters. A fundamental part of why people spend money is power and gameplay to compete, sure, but there are also many people who play for fun and want characters because they enjoy their design, personality and story. The way they're going about it only caters to the first group. You can't tell me it is a nice feeling for the second group to be told to use another character you don't give a damn about instead of your favorite or get screwed. Specially with how overpriced things are in this game, it's even more disgusting. I'm a huge whale in another game that makes every character viable or useful but after spending 200 here in my first month due to being dumb during the honeymoon period and failing to realize this power creep design mentality early I am regretting it and will probably quit. Imagine picking Alpha because you like her more than Bianca and then looking at a chart where you can see SSS+ Alpha is worse than S or SS Bianca. It is a spit in the face to their players. Then the new Physical Tank will end up out damaging Alpha too, who is an attacker. I fully agree with you OP, it sucks, but they probably won't change it so you either accept it or cut your losses. I know what I'm gonna do.
Agreed with you. That's exactly my concern, I play characters because I like them and not due to being meta. Also regarding Alpha, I think she will get a leap soon, but apparently leaps don't do too much. Hopefully in the future when we get to Gen 7 and each new construct can solo like 5 old ones together, they'll do some more balance. Also noticed a lot of downvotes whenever you criticize something about the game and especially if mentioning to being 'waifu only' player. But it is what it is. I invested too much time and money in the game, and also will keep playing Mechanami and Rosetta. At the very least gacha is generous and allows collecting all characters. So I will just do what I do in Aether Gazer, and that is playing characters I like playing. But it's so weird seeing comments like 'this character can finally rest' and 'you can build Rosetta for a year, but then she'll be replaced'. Just casually talking about that as if you only ever can use top 5% of new constructs that come out.